Oratory from Walter Reuther

START AUDIO

Hulsen:

One of the ten leaders speaking here at the Lincoln Memorial
today, John Lewis, Student Non-violent Coordinating
Committee chairman. It's interesting to note that his speech has
changed somewhat from the prepared text given to the press earlier
today. He had a very strong statement that has been eliminated, and the
speech was just delivered. In the prepared text, he said in good
conscience, we cannot support the administration's civil rights bill for
it's too little, and too late.

Randolph:

Fellow Americans, I want to acknowledge the presence of
some 300 young Negroes from Mississippi, who have come to this great demonstration
against race bias. They are in the audience out there. There they
are.

Fellow Americans, I now have the opportunity and
pleasure to present to you a great American, Walter Reuther, President of the United Automobile Worker of
America, and Vice President of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organization, Walter Reuther.

Reuther:

Mr. Randolph, fellow Americans and friends, I am here today with you
because with you I share the view that the struggle for civil rights,
and the struggle for equal opportunity is not the struggle of Negro
Americans, but the struggle for every American to join in.

For 100 years, the Negro people searched for
first-class citizenship. I believe that they cannot and should not wait
until some distant tomorrow. They should command freedom now, here and
now. It is the responsibility of every American to share the impatience
of the Negro Americans.

And we need to join together, to march together, and
to work together until we have bridged the mortal gap between American
democracy's noble promises, and its ugly practices in the field of civil
rights. American democracy has been too long on pious platitudes, and
too short on practical performances in this important area.

Now one of those problems is what I call, that there
are too much high octane, hypocrisy Americans. There is a lot of local
talk about brotherhood, and then some Americans drop the brother and
keep the hood. To me, the civil rights fight is a moral fight, which
transcends partisan politics, and this rally today should be the first
step in a total effort to mobilize the moral conscience of America, and
to ask the people in congress of both parties to rise above the partisan
differences, and enact civil rights legislation now.

Now, the president, President Kennedy, has offered a comprehensive and
moderate bill. That bill is the first meaningful step. It needs to be
strengthened, it needs FEPC, and other stronger
provisions, and the job question is crucial because we will not solve
education or housing or public accommodations, as long as millions of
Americans, Negroes are treated as second-class economic citizens and
denied jobs.

And as one American, I take the position if we can
have full employment, and full production for the negative ends of war,
then why can't we have a job for every American in the pursuit of peace.
And so our slogan has got to be fair employment, but fair employment
within the framework of full employment, so that every American can have
a job.

I am for civil rights, as a matter of human decency,
as a matter of common morality. But I am also for civil rights because I
believe that freedom is an indivisible value that no one can be free
unto himself. And when Bull
Connor with his police dogs and fire hoses destroys freedom
in Birmingham, he is
destroying my freedom in Detroit. And let us keep in mind, since we are the strongest of
the free nations of the world, since you cannot make your freedom
secure, accepting as we make freedom universal, so all may enjoy its
blessings, let us understand that we cannot defend freedom in Berlin, so long as we deny freedom
in Birmingham.

This rally is not the end, it's the beginning. It's
the beginning of a great moral crusade to arouse America to the
unfinished work of American democracy. The congress has to act. And
after they act, we have much work to do in the vineyards of American
democracy in every community.

Men of good will must join together, men of all races,
and creed, and color, and political persuasion, and motivated by the
spirit of human brotherhood. We must search for answers in the light of
reason through rational and responsible actions. Because if we fail, the
vacuum of our failure will be filled by the apostles of hatred, who will
search in the dark of night, and reason will yield to riots, and
brotherhood will yield to bitterness, and bloodshed, and we will tear
asunder the fabric of American democracy.

So let this be the beginning of that great crusade to
mobilize the moral conscious of America, so that we can freedom, and
justice, and equality, and first-class citizen for every American not
just for certain Americans, not only in certain parts of America, but in
every part of America from Boston to Birmingham from New
York to New
Orleans, and from Michigan to Mississippi. Thank you.

Hulsen:

Tremendous applause here at the Lincoln Memorial for Walter Reuther, President
of the United Automobile
Workers. There are many signs evident here letting us know
that there are many union members attending this March.

Randolph:

Dear friends, our friends that you now see here have
walked 250 miles to come here.

Hulsen:

The crowd seems to be getting more active here, waving
hands more vigorously, more applause, more shouting, and as we heard
before, the chant "pass it now, pass the civil rights bill now."
Chairing this formal program here at the Lincoln Memorial is A. Philip Randolph, the
74-year-old director of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as
it's officially called.

Randolph:

I am glad to report to you that the official count is
that we have over 200,000 Negro and white present.

Hulsen:

There's the report you heard earlier from George Geesey
over 200,000 participating in this March.

Floyd McKissick delivers James Farmer's prepared statement

And they see that the crowd does stretch all the way
from here to there.

Randolph:

Everybody take your seats. Our next speaker is Mr.
Floyd McKissick,
National Chairman of Congress on Racial
Equality. He is speaking instead of our good friend and
brother, James Farmer,
who is now in prison in Plaquemine, Louisiana. We all give up our prayers on behalf
of our brother, Jim
Farmer. We will now hear from Brother McKissick.

McKissick:

The message that I shall give to you today was written
by Jim Farmer from a
Plaquemine jail, and
I shall quote his message now. From a South Louisiana Parish jail, I salute the March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Two hundred and thirty-two freedom
fighters jail with me in Plaquemine, Louisiana also send their greetings.

I wanted to be with you with all my heart on this
great day. My imprisoned brothers and sisters wanted to be there too. I
cannot come out of jail while they are still in for their crime was the
same as mine, demanding freedom now. And most of them will not come out
of jail until the charges are dropped or their sentences served. I
cannot let the heroic Negro citizens of Plaquemine down by leaving them now
while they are behind bars. I know that you will understand my absence.
So we cannot be with you today in body, but we are with you in spirit.

By marching on Washington, your trampin’ feet have spoken the message, the message of our struggle in Louisiana. You have given notice of the
struggles of our people in Mississippi and Alabama too, and in California, and in New York, and Chicago, and in Brooklyn. You have come from all over the nation, and in one
mighty voice, you have spoken to the nation.

You have also spoken to the world. You have said to
the world by your presence here, as our successful direct action in
numberless citizens has said that in the age of thermal nuclear bombs, violence is outmoded to the solution of the problems of men. It is the truth that needs to be shouted loudly. And no one else any where in the
world is saying it, as well as the American Negros through their
non-violent direct action.

The tear gas and the electric cattle prods of Plaquemine, Louisiana like
the fire hoses and dogs of Birmingham are giving to the world a tired and ugly message
of terror and brutality and hate. Theirs is a message of pitiful
hopelessness from little and unimaginative men to a world that fears for
its life. It is not that they to whom the world is listening today, it
is to American Negros.

Our direct action method is bringing down barriers
all over the country, in jobs, in housing, in schools, in public places
is giving hope to the world to peoples who are weary of warfare, and who
see extinction hovering over the future like an ominous mushroom cloud. If we can solve our problem, and remove the heavy heel of oppression from
our necks with our methods, then man has no problems anywhere in the
world, which cannot be solved without death.

So we are fighting not only for our rights, and our
freedom, we are fighting not only to make our nation safe for democracy
it preaches, we are fighting also to give our old world a fighting
chance for survival. We are fighting to give millions of babies yet
unborn, black, white, yellow and brown a chance to see day, and to carry
on the battle to remove the night of hate, hunger and disease from the
world. You, thus, are at the center of world's stage.

Play well your roles in your struggle for freedom. In
the thousands of communities from which you have come throughout the
land, act with valor, and dignity, and act without fear. Some of us may
die like William L.
Moore or Medgar
Evers, but our war is for life, not for death, and we will not
stop our demand for freedom now. We will not slow down. We will not stop
our militant, peaceful demonstrations. We will not come off of the
streets until we can work at a job befitting of our skills in any place
in the land.

We will not stop our marching feet until our kids
have enough to eat, and their minds can study a wide range without being
cramped in Jim Crow schools. Until we live wherever we choose, and can
eat, and play with no closed doors blocking our way, we will not stop
the dogs that are biting us in the south, and the rats that are biting in the
north. We will not stop until the heavy weight of centuries of
oppression is removed from our backs, and like proud men everywhere,
when we can stand tall together again.

That is Jim
Farmer's message. May I add that may this day be a day of
beginning for us, but may we rededicate ourselves to the most effective
weapon that we have, and that we have achieved success by. That is the
weapon of direct, non-violent action. Go back to your homes, do not be
misled, and carry on the fight to free all Americans, black and
white.

Hulsen:

The prepared address of James Farmer read by Floyd McKissick, National Chairman of
the Congress of Racial Equality. A
note here from Reporter Dave Edwards, Mr. Edwards will have an exclusive
interview with Senator Hubert
Humphrey at the conclusion of this special program.

You might point out, Al, that from police headquarters,
we've had a report now from Mike Rice that about 17 buses have returned
to Union Station carrying about 900 people back to their trains, so that
some of this crowd can get out of Washington before nightfall.

Performance by the Eva Jessye Choir

Hulsen:

George, it hardly seems that way here. From our vantage
point at the Lincoln
Memorial, it seems as though more people are coming. The
crowd seems to be thickening up here at the edges of the reflecting
pools. There seems to be more movement, more activity – now let's go
back to the stage.

[SINGING "FREEDOM: A THING WORTH THINKING ABOUT"]

Geesey:

The Eva Jessye
Choir entertaining the group assembled at the steps of the
Lincoln
Memorial.

Announcer:

We invite you to stay tuned now, as we hear further
highlights by the ERN of this afternoon's March for Freedom. WGBH-FM 89.7 megacycles in Boston.

[TAPE SKIPS AND CUTS]

Oratory from Whitney M. Young, Jr.

Randolph:

Our next speaker is the brilliant Executive Director of
the National Urban League,
Whitney M. Young,
Jr., one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

Young:

Brother Randolph, fellow Americans, the National Urban League is honored to be a
participant in this historic occasion. Our presence here not only
reflects the civil rights community, increased respect for and awareness
of the Urban League's role,
but most important it says, and I hope loud and clear that while
intelligence, maturity, and strategy dictates that as civil rights
agencies, we use different methods, we are all united, as never before
on the goal our first class citizenship for all Americans now.

That we meet here today in common cause, not as white
people nor as black people nor as members of any particular group, as a
tribute to those Americans, who dared to live up and to practice our democratic ideals, and our religious heritage. That we meet here today is a tribute also to all black Americans, who for 100 years have continued in peaceful and orderly protest to bear witness to our deep faith in America. And in this method of protest to affect change.

That we meet here at all, however, is to shame of
some, who have always blocked the progress of the brown American. And to
the shame of those would make deals, would water down civil rights
legislation or take cowardly refuge in technical details around
elementary human rights. And who would even now, delay until after
Christmas the consideration of these bills before congress.

One should not seek here to atone for his past
failures, as a responsible citizen of the majority group. The evils of
the past, and the guilt about it cannot be erased by a one-day
pilgrimage, however magnificent. Nor can this pilgrimage substitute for
an obligation to tomorrow by these same citizens. And so this March must
go beyond this historic moment for the true test of the rededication,
and the commitment, which should flow from this meeting will be in
recognition that however impressed or however incensed, our
congressional representatives are by this demonstration.

They will not act because of it alone. We must
support the strong. We must give courage to the timid. We must remind
the indifferent, and we must warn the opposed. Civil rights, which are
God-given, and constitutionally guaranteed, are not negotiable in 1963.

Furthermore, we must work together, even more closely
back home where the job must be done to see that Negro Americans are
accepted as first-class citizens, and that they are enabled to do some
more marching. They must march from the rat-infested, over-crowded
ghettos to decent, wholesome, unrestricted residential areas disbursed
throughout our cities. They must march from the relief roles to the
established re-training centers, from under employment, as unskilled
workers to higher occupations commensurate with our skills.

They must march from the cemeteries where our young,
our newborn died three times sooner, and our parents died seven years
earlier. They must march from there to establish health and welfare
centers. They must march from the congested ill-equipped schools, which
breed dropouts, and which smother motivation to the well-equipped
integrated facilities throughout the cities.

They must march from the play areas in crowded and
unsafe streets to the newly opened areas in the parks and recreational
centers. And finally, they must march from a present feeling of despair
and hopelessness, despair and frustration to a renewed faith and confidence due to intangible programs and visible changes made possible only by walking together, to the PTA meetings, to the libraries, to the
decision-making bodies, to the schools and the colleges, to the adult
education centers for all age groups, to the voter registration booth.

The hour is late, the gap is widening, the rumble of
the drums of discontent resounding throughout this land are heard in all
parts of the world. The missions we send there to keep the world safe
for democracy are shallow symbols unless with them goes the living
testament that this country practices at home, the doctrine, which it
seeks to promote abroad.

How serious our national leaders are will be measured
not by words, but by the speed, and sincerity, with which they pass
necessary legislation, with which they admit to the tragic injustice
that has been done our country, and its Negro citizens by historic
discrimination and rejection. And until they take intensive remedial
steps to correct the damage in order to give true meaning to the words
equal opportunity, this is the real significance of our march today,
August 28, 1963. Our march is a march
for America. It is a march just begun.

Oratory from Roy Wilkins

Mr. Roy
Wilkins, Executive Secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People.

Hulsen:

Probably this is the greatest audience reaction thus
far for Mr. Roy Wilkins of
the NAACP.

Wilkins:

Thank you, Mr. Randolph. First of all, I wanna thank
all of you for coming here today because you save me from being a liar.
I told them you would be here. They didn't believe me because you always
make up your mind at the last minute, and you had me scared. But isn't
it a great day? I want some of you to help me win a bet. I want
everybody out here in the open to keep quiet, and I wanna hear a yell,
and a thunder from all those people who are out there under the trees.
Let's hear you.

Hulsen:

And some are in the trees.

Wilkins:

There's one of them in the tree. I just wanna let you
know those of you who are sitting down front here, that there are a
whole lot of people out there under the trees. My friends we are here
today because we want the Congress of the United States to hear from us
in person what many of us have been telling our public officials back
home, and that is we want freedom now. We came here to petition our lawmakers to be as brave as our sit-ins and our marchers, to be as daring as James
Meredith, to be as unafraid as the nine children of Little Rock, and to be as forthright as the governor of North
Carolina, and to be as dedicated as the Archbishop of St. Louis.

We came to speak here to our congress, to those men
and women, who speak here for us in that marble forum over yonder on the
hill. They know from their vantage point here of the greatness of this
whole nation, of its reservoirs of strength, and of the sicknesses,
which threaten always to set the strength and to erode in one or another
selfish and stealthy and specious fashion the precious liberty of the
individual, which is the hallmark of our country among the nations of
the earth.

We have come asking the enactment of legislation that
will affirm the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
and that will place the resources, and the honor of the government of
all the people behind the pledge of equality, and the Declaration of
Independence. We want employment, and with it, we want the pride,
and responsibility, and self-respect that goes with equal access to
jobs. Therefore, we want an FEPC bill, as a
part of the legislative package.

Now, for nine years, our parents and their children
have been met with either a flat refusal or token action in school
desegregation. Every added year of such treatment is a leg iron upon our
men and women of 1980. The civil rights bill
now under consideration in the congress must give new powers to the
justice department to enable it to speed the end of Jim Crow schools,
south and north.

We are sick of those jokes about public
accommodations. We think, for example, that if Mrs. Murphy, rugged
individualist that she must be, has taken her chances with the public
thus far, she can get along without the solicitous protection of the
august Senate of the United States. It is true, of course, that Mrs.
Murphy might get a Negro traveler here and there in her boarding house
or in her tourist home, but then we must remember this, she might get a
white procurer or a white embezzler too. So the congress must require
non-discriminatory public accommodations.

Now, my friends all over this land, and especially in
parts of the deep south, we are beaten and kicked, and maltreated, and
shot, and killed by local and state law enforcement officers. It is
simply incomprehensible to us here today, and to millions of others far
from this spot that the United States government, which can regulate the
contents of a pill, apparently is powerless to prevent the physical
abuse of citizens within its own borders. The attorney general must be
empowered to act on his own initiative in the denial of any civil right, not just one or two, but any civil right, in order to wipe out this shameful situation.

Now, the president's proposals represent so moderate
an approach that if it is weakened or eliminated, the remainder will be
little more than sugar water. Indeed, as it stands today, the package
needs strengthening, and the president should join us in fighting to be
sure that we get something more than pap.

And finally, we here talk of protocol, and
procedures, and rules, including the senate filibuster rule. Well, we
have a thought on that. We declare that rules are made to enable the
congress to legislate, and not to keep it from legislating, and we're
tired of hearing rules cited as a reason why they can't act. We expect
the passage of an effective civil rights bill.

We commend those Republicans in both houses, who are
working for it. We salute those Democrats in both houses, who are
working for it. In fact, we even salute those from the south, who want
to vote for it, but don't dare to do so. And we say to those people,
just give us a little time, and one of these days, we'll emancipate you.
You get to the place where they can come to a civil rights rally too.

If those who support the bill will fight for it, as
hard, and as skillfully, as the southern opposition fights against it,
victory will be ours. Just by your presence here today, we have spoken
loudly and eloquently to our legislators. When we return home, keep up
the speaking by letter, and telegram, and telephone, and wherever
possible, by a personal visit.

Remember that this has been a long fight. We were
reminded of it by the news of the death yesterday in Africa of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. Now, regardless of the
fact that in his later years Dr. Du Bois chose another path, it is incontrovertible that at the dawn of the 20th century, his was the voice that was calling to you to gather here today in this cause. If
you wanna read something that applies to 1963,
go back, and get a volume of the Souls of Black Folk by Du Bois published in 1903.

Well, my friends, you got religion here today, don't
black slide tomorrow. Remember, Luke's account of the warning that was
given to us all. No man, he wrote, having put his hand to the plow, and
looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Thank you.

Hulsen:

As we near the end of this, live broadcast for the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial that
was Roy Wilkins, Executive
Secretary of the National Association of
the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP.

Oratory from Rabbi Joachim Prinz

Randolph:

Fellow citizens, I now have the pleasure to present to
you for an address, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President, American Jewish Congress.
Rabbi Prinz.

Prinz:

I wish I could sing. I speak to you as an American Jew.
As Americans, we share the profound concern of millions of people about
the shame and disgrace of inequality and injustice, which makes a
mockery of the great American idea. As Jews, we bring to the great
demonstrations, in which thousands of us proudly participate, a twofold
experience, one of the spirit, and one of our history.

In the realm of the spirit, our fathers taught us
thousands of years ago that when God created man, He created him as
everybody's neighbor. Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral
concept. It means our collective responsibility for the preservation of
man's dignity and integrity.

From our Jewish historic experience of three and a
half thousand years, we say, our ancient history began with slavery, and
the yearning for freedom. During the middle ages, my people lived for a
thousand years in the ghettos of Europe. Our modern history begins with a proclamation of
emancipation.

It is for these reasons that it is not merely
sympathy and compassion for the black people of America that motivates
us. It is above all and beyond all such sympathies and emotions a sense
of complete identification and solidarity born of our own painful
historic experience.

When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned
many things. The most important thing that I learned in my life, and
under those tragic circumstances is that bigotry and hatred are not the
most urgent problems. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most
shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence.

A great people... A great people, which has created a
great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They
remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality, and in
the face of mass murder. America must not become a nation of onlookers.
America must not remain silent, not merely Black America, but all of
America, it must speak up, and act from the president down to the
humblest of us, and not for the sake of the Negro, not for the sake of a
black community, but for the sake of the image, the dream, the idea, and
the aspiration of America itself.

Our children, yours and mine, in every school across the land, every morning pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States, and to the Republic for which it stands. And then they, the children, speak fervently, and innocently of this land, as a land of
liberty, and justice for all.

The time, I believe, has come to work together, for
it is not enough to hope together, and it is not enough to pray
together. To work together that this children's oath pronounced every
morning from Maine to California from north to
south, that this oath will become a glorious, unshakable reality in a
morally renewed, and united America. Thank you.

Recognition of the March organizers

Fellow Americans, you ought to carry away with you a
memento to indicate that you participated in a great demonstration for
your own liberation. Here we have a memento known as, We Shall Overcome
by one of the gifted artists of America. I hope you will get one before
you leave.

Now, we have had great cooperation in developing this
great movement. Some names you must remember, one is Cleveland Robinson, Secretary
Treasury of District 65 RSDU, AFL-CIO, and also a Vice President of the Negro American Labor
Council. He is the Chairman of the Administration Committee that
handled and controlled the affairs of the march. Another name is Bayard Rustin, Manager,
Director, and a gifted young man. He has marvelous capacity for the
organization of men.

He and Cleveland Robinson did the real [INDISCERNABLE] work in
making this movement move, and then he was assisted by a fine group of
men, John Morsell,
Assistant to Roy Wilkins
of the NAACP. He gave brilliant
support. And Gloster
Current, Organization Director of NAACP, and Frank Montero, L. Joseph Overton, one of the Vice
Presidents of the Negro American Labor Council, and Theodore E. Brown, one of the trade
unionists, who did effective organization work in the movement.

And then there is Dr. Kilgore. Dr. Kilgore has been a tower of strength in
building the movement. I wanted you to know something about these names,
and then they had about 200 or 300 volunteers, who work zealously and
religiously day and night to make this movement a success. I'm happy to
tell you about this. And later on, Mr. Rustin will read the demands of our
movement. At this time, I have the honor to present to you the moral
leader of our nation, a great, dedicated man.

Introduction of Martin Luther King, Jr.

A philosopher of a non-violent system of behavior, and
seeking to bring about social change for the advancement of justice and
freedom and human dignity. I have the pleasure to present to you, Dr.
Martin Luther King,
Jr.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down
in history, as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of
our nation. Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic
shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been
seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous
daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later,
the Negro still is not free.